Posts Tagged ‘Bill Maher’

People talk a lot about third political party in America. We don’t need a third party, we need a first party. You go to the polls, and your choices are the guy who voted for the first Wall Street bailout or the guy who voted for the next ten. This week we’re hearing that a public option for healthcare is unlikely, because it doesn’t have the support of enough Democrats. Even Ted Kennedy’s plan — Ted Kennedy, yeah — leaves 37 million uninsured. This is because we don’t have a left and a right party in this country anymore; we have a center-right party and a crazy party. And over the last thirty-odd years Democrats have moved to the right and the right has moved into a mental hospital.

So what we have is one perfectly good party for hedge fund managers, credit card companies, banks, defense contractors, big agriculture, and the pharmaceutical lobby. That’s the Democrats. And they sit across the aisle from a small group of religious lunatics, flat-earthers, and Civil War re-enactors, who mostly communicate by AM radio and call themselves the Republicans, and who actually worry that Obama is a socialist.

Socialist? He’s not even a liberal. I know he’s not, because he’s on TV and while I see Democrats on television, I don’t see actual liberals. And if occasionally you do get to hear Ralph Nader or Noam Chomsky or Dennis Kucinich, they’re treated like buffoons. Okay, these are not three of the world’s most charismatic men, but then, nobody’s going to confuse Newt Gingrich for Zac Efron, and I have to look at his fat face on TV more often than that Free Credit Report song.

Shouldn’t there be one party that unambiguously supports cutting the military budget? A party that is straight-up in favor of gun control, gay marriage, higher taxes on the rich, universal healthcare, legalizing pot, and steep direct taxing of polluters? These aren’t radical ideas. A majority of Americans are either already for them, or would be if they were properly argued and defended. And what we need is an actual progressive party to represent the millions of Americans who aren’t being served by the Democrats. Because bottom line: Democrats are the new Republicans.